Spiritual formation is renovation of the soul. That’s what I’m thinking as I empty the drawers of an old desk into a tote, as I shake my head over the accumulation of the years. In the deepest drawer, I find a knot of cords, and I smile, thinking this is how my thoughts would look […]

Kevin and I set out for our walk in the early morning, while the air is crisp and new light glows soft pink. We smile over the volume of the birds, how they chitter and squaw from fence post to power lines to the peaks of the trees, sentinels passing messages. We gesture and smile, […]

I finish braiding Riley’s hair for school; she likes one thick rope down her back, the elastics double tightened, and I smile because already tiny errant curls have begun to escape around her face. Already, the freer part of her has begun to defy strict boundaries. Sometimes when she feels overwhelmed, she pushes those rebels […]

Fresh from the shower on an 80-degree day that feels thick with the promise of Summer, Adam spins–literally–into the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants–buffalo check–and a salt-washed long-sleeved t-shirt as blue as his eyes. I wonder how he doesn’t instantly feel that sticky prickle of after-shower sweat at the base of the neck and the […]

Riley sits at the bar, fresh-faced and bright, if still a little rumpled with sleep. She looks like Spring, like the first day of sapphire skies; like new flowers with blushing, velvet leaves; like anticipation; like hope sitting right there on a bench in my kitchen., and it’s striking to me because it’s the opposite […]

The grass glitters with frost, twinkling Messiah-lights that will remain long after Christmas. Long after we have packed away our bulbs and vacuumed away all traces of the tree; after we, traveling on to January, have stopped announcing our King, all creation still will proclaim His praise in a language understood in every nation. I […]

That breeze today, it tickles my cheeks, warm Autumn winds dancing over rising hills, an invisible thumb tracing the lines of my face. I press my hand flat against the pages to keep them from drifting up. That hand, it’s my mother’s hand, perpetually tanned, rooted with veins like a stretch of earth beneath a […]

When we arrive, the rustic man from whom we rented the cabin waits, rising to lumber out to the door. His eyes are blue, cool and vibrant like the snatch of sky I glimpse above the mountains. In some ways, he is those mountains, sloped and capped in silver cloud, monochrome and rumpled in the […]

He doesn’t want to cut the bushes. “Please don’t cutting the bushes,” Adam says to me first thing when I walk in the kitchen on Saturday morning, bending low as though unless he’s close to my ear I might not hear, that voice of his deep and gentle. I glance at the white board where […]

Outside, rain softly falls, soothing sheets like curtains on every side of the porch, and I sit still, watching. Late afternoon, and God has made a few moments for me to notice the gathering puddles, to trace the splash of drops from finger lengths of upturned leaves, rolling down, down to drip or, finally, to […]